The Escape Read online

  He laughs as I say that. ‘But not guilty about telling tales to the Stasi about his drug-running operation?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You said you ended up shouting out everything in your interrogation.’

  ‘I did. But Quill said he had the Stasi on side, so they won’t do anything, will they?’

  ‘I’m not sure. It’s one thing for a local informant to accept a bribe and turn a blind eye. It’s another for an officer to ignore a taped statement given during interrogation. In any case, things will be different for the Stasi now – with what’s happening. Information like this could just get handed on to Interpol.’

  ‘You think?’

  Michael shrugs. ‘It’s all going to change, now the Wall’s coming down.’ He indicates off the road towards a huddle of concrete buildings: a shop, petrol station and diner. ‘But you mustn’t feel bad about it,’ he says, pulling into a parking space. ‘He deserves it, and more, from what you’ve just told me.’ He turns the key and the engine is quiet, and there is just Suzanne Vega’s voice, still singing about changing her destiny.

  ‘Why have we stopped?’ I say.

  ‘Why do you think?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘We need to buy a map or ask where Lossen is, if we’re ever going to find your grandmother’s house.’

  ‘Of course.’ I click the stop button on the tape deck and reach for the door handle.

  For a moment I’d forgotten what I was doing here, lost in conversation with the blue-eyed pilot.

  Chapter 39

  May 1945, England

  Tom

  He dropped his head in his hands in defeat. All morning he’d been shifted from pillar to post in the Home Office. Nobody seemed to have heard of Odette Bruncel, or to care. We are not at liberty to disclose the details of confidential files, they told him. And the expressions on their faces added: why would you want anything to do with that filthy Nazi spy?

  He looked up through the window beside him to see a droning swarm pass overhead from right to left behind the dirty glass, like migrating birds, heading eastwards, along the Thames and over to Germany. And then they were gone. The skies outside were back to the usual cloudy blue, and the sound was just a distant vibration in the glass. That’s what they’d do if he didn’t find her in time, he supposed: put her on a troop plane back to Germany. Or a ship, more likely. After all she’d been through. It didn’t bear thinking about.

  Feet pattered along the endless Home Office corridors, typewriters chattered, filing cabinet drawers swooshed open and clunked closed. A patch of spilled tea lay unnoticed on the beige linoleum. The woman at the desk nearest him finished licking a manila envelope and let it fall onto the stack in front of her. Tom felt a pull in his chest and his throat constricted. Breathe, he told himself. Just breathe. The hand on the big clock by the door jerked forward. ‘I’m going for lunch,’ said the envelope-licker to her typing colleague. ‘You want me to pick something up for you?’

  ‘You’re alright, I’ll be off myself in a sec.’ One of the metal hammers stuck out on her typewriter. The typist tutted and pushed it back into its position in the ranks. ‘I’ve got the afternoon off for a dental appointment. But I’ve got to finish this one. It’s urgent.’

  ‘They always say that. I say nothing’s as urgent as my shopping. If I don’t have something to put in the oven for tea then my Harry will have my guts for garters.’ The other woman made a face, and left, plucking her handbag and coat from the stand on her way out.

  Tom’s final hope was a man called Witherington, who was in charge of the ‘Aliens Department’. He was told he might be able to get hold of Witherington at lunchtime. He’ll swing through the typing pool to pick up his bowler and umbrella from his office. You might catch him then, a spotty young clerk told him, not sounding optimistic. So Tom waited, on the hard chair by the edge of the typing pool, in the gap between the window and Witherington’s office, where a small mirror hung on the wall next to a fire warden’s tin hat.

  He sighed, looking round. Where was the fellow? Most of the typists and clerks had already gone. The chatter of typewriters was almost silent, except for the one in front of him, an older woman with grey streaks at her temples – more conscientious than most, it seemed. Then she, too, finished. Pulled out the cream sheet of paper, placed it in a manila file, and got up. She walked right past him to Witherington’s office, went in, and came out without it. Was she his secretary?

  She paused in front of the mirror and pulled a lipstick from her pocket, dabbing the remains of an orangey colour on her lips. She must have sensed him looking at her. ‘Not hungry?’ she said. ‘The canteen’s pretty good, considering. It’s in the basement.’

  ‘I’m waiting for Mr Witherington. I was told I might be able to catch him.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know who told you that, I’m sure, but you’ll be lucky if you find him here. He’s in conference and they’ve had sandwiches sent in. Sometimes they go on all afternoon. You’d be better off having a bite to eat, or even leaving it until tomorrow, I would. He’s usually in a foul temper by the end of the day.’

  ‘But I can’t. I can’t afford to wait around. What if they send her back, after all she’s been through?’ All the woman did was shoot him a sympathetic look, but he found himself blurting it all out: the escape with Harper, how Detta hid them from the SS and came back with them on the boat to Liverpool. ‘So you see, that’s why I’m prepared to wait for Witherington, as long as it takes, even if I end up sleeping here.’

  When he finished, she said nothing, but continued to look at him, squinting her eyes a little. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Rambling on like that, and you about to get off on your lunch break. Don’t let me keep you.’

  ‘That’s where I know you from,’ she said, still looking at him in that strange way.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re one of Gordon’s crew: the one who made it back with him – the one who saved his life.’ Her face brightened as she spoke. ‘You were at the wedding, weren’t you? In January ’42?’

  ‘I’m not sure I follow you.’

  ‘Gordon Harper, married my niece Dorothy. We all got roaring drunk in the mess and someone played the bagpipes. I seem to remember you doing a foxtrot with Aunty Maud.’

  ‘Good Lord. Did I?’ January 1942: it would have been just before the sortie when they took the hit. It felt like pre-history.

  ‘You’re Tom Jenkins, aren’t you?’ She’d moved to stand in front of him, her face breaking into a grin. ‘My family owes you so much, for bringing Dorothy’s husband home. I can’t thank you enough.’ Tom stood up to shake her hand, which seemed to be the right thing to do, but she grabbed him and hugged him close. ‘We’re all so very grateful,’ she said.

  ‘Nothing to thank me for,’ Tom said, his voice muffled by her hair. ‘He would have done the same.’

  The woman let him go, wiping a tear from her cheek and sniffing loudly. ‘Silly me. But let me buy you lunch. It’s the least I can do. It was so wonderful for Dorothy to get her husband home safe. So many weren’t so lucky.’

  ‘That’s very kind, but I’d rather wait for Witherington,’ Tom said.

  ‘Is it about the girl? Gordon said there was a priest and a girl who helped you hide, and the girl came with you.’

  ‘Yes,’ Tom said. ‘Her name is Odette Bruncel. She’s my fiancée. But they’ve got her locked up in Nightingale Lane somewhere and nobody will even let me see her. So I was hoping that your Mr Witherington—’

  ‘Oh, you’ll get no joy from him,’ the woman interrupted. ‘Even if she’s cleared of espionage links, he’ll have her deported. He’s awfully strict.’

  Tom frowned. ‘There must be something I can do?’

  The woman sighed and continued. ‘No, he’ll have her sent back. They’re not re-interning them now, just sending them to parts of Europe that have already been liberated and letting them make their own way home. That is, unless she has a permit to stay f
or the purpose of marriage to a British citizen. Does she have one of those?’

  ‘I don’t think she has anything. That’s why I’m here. So do you think Witherington will be able to help with the permit?’

  ‘No. He’ll chuck you out with a flea in your ear.’ Her eyes met his. ‘If he gets to hear about it, that is.’

  She went back round to her desk, pulled a form from a drawer, and wound it into the machine. ‘I need her full name and date of birth, and yours, and your home address. He gave them to her, watching her type the details in the form.

  ‘And this means she’s free?’ he said, as she pulled the paper from the machine and held it out to him.

  ‘It means you can get her out of that repatriation centre and get a ring on her finger. But as for getting a naturalization certificate and so forth, you’d have to ask Mrs Clarkson about that, and she’s not due back for another half an hour. If you want to wait?’

  ‘No, I’ve done enough waiting to last me a lifetime. Thank you. Thank you so much.’

  She smiled as he took the permit. ‘Nothing to thank me for. Good luck.’

  Detta

  ‘Anything for me?’

  The wardress shook her head and walked past, distributing the second post: doling out envelopes and packages to the rest of the dormitory. Many of the other women got mail every day; they’d been in internment centres for most of the war, but pre-war friends kept in touch, sending sweets and toiletries. The other women talked openly about how, even if they were repatriated, they’d find a way back to Britain. For them, it was home, despite it all.

  But there was never any post for Detta. The authorities had been taking the letters she wrote, reading them and filing them. None of her letters had been sent, none of them had reached Tom. Unless? She thought of the unstamped envelope fluttering down like a giant snowflake in front of the postbox last week, and the little girl popping it in the slot.

  No. She would have heard by now. It was a foolish hope. Either that letter never made it to Tom or, worse, he received it and chose not to respond.

  She looked out through the sash window beside her bed. The skies were duck-egg blue, and the trees vibrant green with new leaves. The flowering cherry shed pink petals like confetti on the empty lawn. Spring was here already, and still no word from Tom. She could just see over the fence and into Nightingale Lane, where a khaki green military vehicle was pulling up at the kerb, beside the postbox.

  The wardress stopped on her way back. ‘Have you packed your things ready?’

  ‘Yes.’ Detta indicated to the small string bag packed with her few possessions, which lay on top of the grey blanket, next to her fur coat. ‘Do you know what time the transport is coming?’

  ‘I can’t rightly say, Miss. This afternoon is all I was told.’ She shrugged and walked out, closing the door behind her with a click.

  Detta smoothed a hand over the white pillowcase: damp, always, from the silent tears she shed every night after lights out. The second post had been her last chance. But now that, too, was gone.

  There was a tiny choking mewl from the cot between her own bed and the next. Detta turned her face away from the window to see Gabi – the baby’s Italian mother – groan and roll over under the sheets.

  Detta took out the remains of a precious tin of Vaseline from her pocket. She pushed off the lid and took out a dab, smearing it on her lips, first, for the shine, and then over her eyebrows, to tidy them. She pinched her cheeks to redden them: preparing a face to meet the future. As she took out the broken comb to run it through her hair, she heard the reception centre doorbell buzz. She thought of the army car she’d seen drawing up outside. It must be the transport to take her away, back to Germany – what was left of it – back to the mud and blood and chaos.

  The baby began to howl in earnest, and Gabi sat up, bleary-eyed, and began to unbutton her blouse. Detta shot her a sympathetic glance. Gabi had been a friend, of sorts, these last few depressing weeks.

  Detta stood up and put her hand in her pocket, feeling for the torn postcard she’d kept with her all these months. Did Tom still have the other half, or had he thrown it away weeks ago? It didn’t matter, now. Tom didn’t want her. England didn’t want her. So be it.

  She took out the scrap of card, and walked over to where the metal waste-paper bin was, by the dormitory door. She glanced down at the picture of the Deutches Haus Inn that she held between her fingertips: that had been home. She turned it over. On the other side was Tom’s address: that could have been home. But neither existed for her, anymore. Marriage to Tom, a new life in England, all that had been a dream, and now it was time to wake up.

  Chapter 40

  November 1989, Poland

  Miranda

  It isn’t even there. I hold up the torn postcard with the yellowed strip of peeling Sellotape holding the two halves together. Looking at arm’s length, I can see exactly where it should have been. But my grandmother’s childhood home no longer exists. Gone is the half-timbered brick and the thick oak door. Gone, too, are the trees and hedge on one side. Instead there is a dusty patch of bare muddy gravel, rutted with tyre tracks, an unofficial widening of the main road where it swoops round the corner. There are houses further back: boxy grey things that look more like bunkers than homes, blankly utilitarian, like the rest of the village.

  My neck aches from falling asleep on the back seat earlier. I stand, looking at the place where it should have been, where a family lived and a history began, and now there is nothing but an empty lot.

  A lorry thunders past behind me, and the postcard wobbles in my hand. ‘There’s nothing left,’ I say, turning my head to Michael. I feel as puffed-up and angry as the thick clouds that tower above us.

  ‘Does it matter?’ he says.

  ‘But I’ve dragged you all this way, and it’s not even here.’

  ‘What were you expecting? What wasn’t blown up by the Red Army was probably flattened by Communism.’ He sounds matter-of-fact. ‘We might as well look around, as we’re here. I don’t know about you, but I could do with a coffee and something to eat before we head off. And you might feel differently about the place if you’ve seen more of it,’ he says, touching me lightly on the sleeve and pointing over the road behind us. ‘Look, the church is still standing – that would have been the church your grandmother went to, wouldn’t it?’

  I turn to look. I hadn’t noticed it when we pulled up: a large white church, outlined in thick terracotta paint, with an onion shaped spire. ‘Yes,’ I say, my mood lifting a fraction.

  Three cars pass in quick succession and then we walk through a veil of exhaust fumes to the other side, where there is a pebble-dashed house, with a garden that attaches to the churchyard. There is a single beech tree in front of the manse. I falter, and a shiver runs through me. ‘You okay?’ Michael says, slipping a hand under my elbow. ‘You look pale.’

  I have a swimming feeling, as if I’ve got up too quickly, and the whole world throbs. ‘Just a little light-headed,’ I say, reaching out to steady myself on the tree trunk. The bark is rough beneath my fingertips.

  ‘Maybe your blood sugar is low – you didn’t have much breakfast, did you?’ he says. I shake my head. ‘Let’s find somewhere where we can get you a drink, at least. And you’re shivering. Here – take this.’ He unwinds the sky-blue scarf from his own neck and wraps it round mine.

  He is right. I am cold. The temperature, already chill, seems to have plummeted further. I pull the scarf up so it covers my head. ‘Thank you,’ I say.

  ‘That might be a hotel,’ he says, pointing up behind the manse, beyond the churchyard, to where a large Schloss is glimpsed through the winter-bare trees. ‘Why don’t you have a look round here, and I’ll go on ahead and see if we can get something to eat and drink up there?’

  ‘Okay,’ I say. I hear his footfalls crunch away up the path.

  I hold up the postcard again. I was too close, I realize. The photograph would have been taken from here, across th
e road. And the leaves in the foreground may well have been the branches of this tree. I put the postcard in my jeans pocket and run my hands over the trunk.

  The tree has been fire damaged. It looks as if it was hit by lightning once, long ago, half of it withered and blackened. There is a hole the size of a head, at shoulder height. Inside it new growth sprouts, like arms, reaching up, pushing through the blackened space. There is a mixture of old charcoal and leaf mold at the base of the hole: dark brown and moist. I dig my fingertips down, through the clamminess of it, feeling, deeper, deeper, down through past years of blown leaves and detritus. But I can’t find anything. Maybe someone else has been treasure hunting since 1945. Maybe it’s the wrong tree. Maybe the necklace was never there.

  As I rub the muck from my hands, I look up through the empty tree branches at the upstairs window of the manse, and for a moment I think I see the pale outlines of two faces behind the glass. There’s an odd smell in the air: not the fading scent of exhaust but stronger – acrid smoke – something burnt. I wrinkle my nose, and blink, and when I open my eyes again the faces have gone. I must have imagined them.

  I decide to have one last look, just to be certain, and plunge my hands back inside the trunk, scrabbling down as far as I can. There’s something stringy, like a root, in the way, catching the edge of my baby fingernail. I pull to get rid of it, this sinewy thread. As I tug it out, there is a tiny sparkle, as the light catches something hidden. Underneath the grime is metal, tarnished dark grey and cold. And on the end of it a blackened lozenge. A chain and locket. I smile, and put it safely in my jeans pocket, next to the torn postcard. I have two things to take back to my grandmother. And a hundred questions to ask about the story that lies behind them.

  I hear a rustling sound and look up into the bare branches. Two black birds with silver speckles on their wings – starlings – flutter away over the rooftop, as if disturbed by something.

  I pull my grandfather’s Rolleiflex from my rucksack, hugging it into the space below my heart. I take photographs: the tree, the manse, the church, the churchyard, the empty space where the guesthouse used to be. I’m planning to put together an album of photographs to take to Gran in hospital.